With the Hotfix and Enduro the P170EM 7970M is still generally slower than the P170EM 680M Optimus. If we remove Optimus and Enduro, things might change but we haven't had a chance to test that yet (see final paragraph). As for throttling, correct: I saw no indication of problems even during my torture testing. If you put it on shag carpet in a 100F room, yes, you'll probably throttle, but sitting on a table in a 70-80F room with a 100% load on CPU and GPU I didn't see any throttling after two hours (and CPU/GPU temperatures had stabilized at around 87C for over an hour).Reply

A comparison between an Enduro enabled and an Enduro disabled laptop (say Clevo vs AW) would be really, really cool. That would show the true difference between a fully working 7970M and the one running on Enduro (which is the most important thing, not how 7970M compares to the 680M)Reply

I agree. This is one way, though not entirely on a level playing field, for us to gauge by how much % Enduro cripples the card. I'm sure the hotfix will alleviate some of the underutilization problems, but how far is it from bypassing Enduro altogether? I'm curious.Reply

OK, well all I keep seeing is talk about this 7970M, what about those of us with these half baked 76xx cards (7690M XT) (re branded 6770M) with an Intel gpu chip (3000)? Is this new enduro driver going to fix us? What I'm looking for is some assurance that we with these AMD/Intel monsters will get the help we need from this "New" driver set. What we are looking for is to be able to download our updated drivers directly from AMD, not the laptop makers.

What I need is to be informed on is how AMD's new driver will interact with those of us that have these laptops with both AMD and Intel GPU's.

I'm still waiting for AMD to answer my last Email to their support section on this also.Reply

The Hotfix likely won't help you, but the 12.9 Beta should install at least. If it's like my VAIO C, though, the global switchable setting page won't work right now. The next public driver will hopefully fix this and provide full support for all 6000M and 7---M (and maybe 5000M?) Enduro/Dynamic Switchable laptops.Reply

I'm sitting here holding time, and hope your right about the "next" driver.I'm also hoping that the "next" driver doesin farctt support the 6000M cards as this 7690M XT is a re branded 6770M, and when drivers are installed is identified as such in device manager, I assume because AMD as yet to "support" their Radeon 76 series cards. But hope they code the driver to see MY card as its labeled.

All I'm looking for from AMD is some assurance of that, even if it is "the next" driver, or the next. And some reasonable information on how it would work with my Intel 3000 my secondary gpu for battery use.Reply

You say 7700/7800M users aren't affected "as much", which I disagree with. I have an HP Envy 17 with 7850M, which is definitely being affected quite a bit. Check out Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for example: http://i.imgur.com/o2rqJ.png

MAX 67% GPU utilization, and I was getting ~ 34-36 fps. Very bad for multiplayer indeed. I was running 1920x1080 @ High texture, Low shadows, 0xAA, 16xAF. Reducing settings further only results in lower utilization, and visuals, not higher frame rates.

This all on the public 12.9 beta of course.

From the looks of things though, I can't wait to get my hands on that hotfix you have there ;P.Reply

Jarred would you be able to test Sleeping Dogs, Saints Row 3 and/or GTA IV? Saints Row 3 seems heavily impacted by the utilization issue, and Sleeping Dogs also doesn't scale too well. I am interested in GTA IV because that is the game I play the most.Reply

I'll be adding Sleeping Dogs, Max Payne 3, Guild Wars 2, Borderlands 2, Sniper Elite V2, and a few other games to the list of benchmarks for comparing GTX 680M with HD 7970M -- mostly as a one-time affair I think, unless someone can make a really good case for ditching some of the current games we're testing and adding new titles?Reply

Hey, great and extensive work, thank you. I'm a little bit worried about the performance gains being low at the top end settings. But then again the actual level detail settings are abstracted away in the chart.

It would be of great use if DCS World titles could be compared as well, for example BlackShark 2, A10 or even the free Su25.

That is expected, because the issue is related to display information not being transferred quickly enough. The higher the frame rate, the more information that needs to be pushed, and at low details, you have very high frame rates.Reply

The problem we've seen in DCS and Arma is that at high settings the performance is also very slow compared to similarly matched NVIDIA counterparts, for example GTX 580 which should rank about where 7970M does.Reply

How much is a good TV cost? And how much is a mini computer or a netbook cost? Add the two together and you'll have a smarter TV with a better price.I have the Sony Google TV and I must say it was the worst purchase I'd ever made. It's overpriced and underpowered. It sucks, period. Reply

Now, any insight for those of us with these 76xxM gpu's? any kind of inside rumor of how/when/if the hot fix's or drivers will help us? Or when we will be able to downbload updates directly from the AMD driver page?.

I need one clarification here:I can buy a laptop with this GPU for the price similar to Nvidia 660M based laptop.So my question is can we deactivate Enduro altogether on Clevo based laptop as I will use it as a desktop replacement and not care about abttery life or energy saving (as it saves anyway more than desktop).So,can somebody answer me this, please?Thanks in advance.Reply

AMD drivers blow chunks.Have they ever released a card that doesn't have serious ongoing issues for years ?(and I don't mean pre hd2900)

They just suck, badly.

I'm going to hear about all the unlocked future potential again, and how great their hardware is.... for years a fan will spew that ... "on down the line this may be the future proof I've always wanted!! gush gush "...

How sad it is. A friend says it's sucky coders and engineers at amd. Who cares what it is.

I want to know what card they have ever released that wasn't a walking plague.Reply

The term hotfix is used for a quick release that repairs a certain critical problem.I might sound like an xxx but I bought this card over 3 month ago and nothing was fixed.Neither quick nor hot.I just cannot understand that sort of customer treatment.There must be some serious problems in that company going on that we don't know about.Learned my lessons. Yes to AnAndTech, NO to AMD.Since I'm the one everyone of my friends and friends of friends ask about what hardware they should buy I can at least help others to stay out of that problems.Reply